vyxcondessa - Tumblr blog

vyxcondessa · 2 months ago

Text

my fellow, my guy

Summary: All his attempts at faking nonchalance about anything are gone out of the window just like that. Four words and Joel's changed. In his bones, the very chemistry of his brain. "'Cause he's my guy." How did he ever manage to not claim you in front of the world? He has no clue, but Joel's changing that. Tonight.

A/n: Hiya! It's me. I'm writing a prequel and a sequel to this, so I decided to post this back on Tumblr. It's been up on my ao3 since I wrote it. And yeah, it's prev. nexusnyx.

WC & Tags: 5.2k | Established relationship, possessive!Joel, possessive!Reader, no use of Y/n, explicit smut.

In the middle of what seemed like a sea of infinite, boring nothingness, Joel is hooked by the magnitude of your nature's force — the power in the way you stand; your presence.

His favorite thing ever since he met you. Everything about you.

Since he arrived at Jackson's community with Ellie two years ago, he's been blinded by it.

Your light, heat, glow. Joel might as well be a moth, and it amazed him now that he thought of it, how long he managed to pretend he was anything by mesmerized by your flames. In the middle of the meeting, you utter the words that snap something inside him, and Joel feels his inner workings shifting. Four words and Joel's changed:

"'Cause he's my guy."

All his attempts at faking nonchalance about anything are gone out of the window just like that. In his bones, the very chemistry of his brain — Joel feels a snap, and he sort of... embraces it.

There's silence around the table for only a second.

Nathan had asked: "But why does he get to go if it's that dangerous? I get it when you go by yourself 'cause we know you're different, but I've asked you multiple times, and it's always no. I just — I don't get why he's going."

And you had answered.

Loud and clear.

"Not that you have to get anything, Nathan, since you don't have the ground knowledge to be second-guessing my decisions of any plans, but — it's simple. I'll answer you. 'Cause he's my guy. And I'll take him to wherever I please."

You had paused, lifted both eyebrows in question, and Nathan remained silenced.

Joel freezes at first, too. When you say 'he's my guy' the words shoot like a freezing spell that hits his blood, but even with almost all eyes turning shamelessly to him, Joel can feel his shoulders relaxing further back the more you stare at him. In only a second he sees a lot of words running through your eyes, and all he can think back is a litany of — yes exactly yes—

He leans back on the chair's backrest. Both of his feet slide a few inches further, his legs spreading wider.

He is your guy.

Has been for a while now. A year — almost a year a half, if he was being really accurate. While both of you managed to keep that hidden for the better half of that time, lately the nosy (and delusional) jackasses like Nathan were prodding into your business with jabs here and there. Tauntings about the 'nature' of things between you and him. As if they couldn't see it in both of your eyes. Your postures. The way you walked side by side.

No matter how private you two tried being, you two almost had rings gravitating the bubble created around you, like Saturn in the sky.

Joel knew they frowned upon him. Talked about him on his back — about him and his daughter, about his daughter's personality, and the way Joel Miller seems to 'have only smiles for his Ranger neighbor'.

The silence around the table's broken by his own voice, letting the words slip out of his tongue. "Don't worry, Nathan. 'm not decorative. I've got good aim. If you're worried about her safety, don't be."

What a jackass move. That's what the smile on the corner of your mouth said to him. "See? So helpful. We'll all be fine, and once we're through there and come back, everyone else can be fine too knowing there's nothing to worry about."

With a sigh, you get up before Nathan can finish collecting his patience from the floor, or wipe away the humiliation of being rejected for what is far from the first time since he's unable to accept a refusal without embarrassing himself.

"Are we all clear?"

After a round of verbal agreement from the table — one of which comes through gritted teeth — you nod once, put on a smile, and sigh loudly. "Excellent. You're all free to go."

It was so, so — hot. Enticing, and hypnotizing.

The power you had over people that came not because of something futile, but because of how capable your hands were. Joel was an imbecile if he was being honest with himself.

How did he ever manage to not claim you in front of the world? He has no clue, but Joel's changing that.

Tonight.

He sits back and waits while the room empties out, slowly.

Some people linger back to talk to each other, to him, to you. He answers all of them without ever turning his body away from you, and when there are only a handful of people left, Joel remains seated, with no rush to gather his jacket or things since he's leaving with the person who's closing the whole building.

He's leaving with you.

Tommy, Mercedes, and Max are the last ones hanging around, and while the two latter go exchange a word with you — "good gods, can we do a round table vote to kick fucking Nathan out of here? I know he's a master engineer or whatever, but fuck, man, he's annoying", starts Max — his brother knocks his elbow on his side.

Joel looks up to find the smirk on Tommy's face.

"If you had feathers, you'd be peacocking all over the goddamn room," he whispers for Joel's ears only.

Joel laughs under his breath. "Shut up."

Tommy shakes his head, laughing as well. "Nah, I won't, actually. I happen to like seein' that stupid look on your goddamn face."

"Is that so?" Joel wants to sound a little more sarcastic, but with the huge smile he feels imprinted on his face, it's impossible to do so.

"Damn right it is," Tommy chuckles. "And you know why it's the best seein' that smile puttin' even a glint in your eyes, huh?"

Oh, god, here he goes. "Why?"

"Because this is the best damn I told you so on the planet. Well — one of the best. There's space for more," Tommy pouts, looking up with a musing look. "A couple of really big others." He looks down at Joel again, smiling from ear to ear. "I've gotten really smart in your absence, and I wanna hear the day when you'll admit it."

Joel's amused by the confidence — if Tommy's right about many other things Joel will find out eventually, but this, he owns.

Tommy introducing Joel to you with only a nudge in the right direction was all it took.

"We'll see about those," Joel answers and Tommy huffs good-heartedly in response, an image most familiar to Joel.

Now again, after almost decades without it.

Joel's happy for many reasons, it seems.

He sinks his feet in the feeling, not wanting to track back to things he's unable to change.

Tommy opens his mouth to say something, but Joel catches a cue from across the room:

Keys. Your set of keys when grabbed from the table make a known sound, and it's like an alarm — a triggering sound that connects to routine. He hears them and Tommy turns around, seeing how Max and Mercedes are leaving.

Joel and Tommy move in sync toward you, and everybody — with the exception of Joel and you — bids their goodbyes at the door outside.

As soon as they're out of sight, Joel turns to find your eyes already waiting for his.

He never had this type of relationship before. Never saw in someone's eyes the thoughts running through their mind at that exact moment, and it was exhilarating.

You knew your words had affected them.

The only thing you were probably unaware of was the epiphany that accompanied them — the moment his mind came to a halt.

The inner fight over faking being empty.

It was so silly. Joel was full.

"If I kiss you here, we're not gonna stop," Joel informs you.

A breathless chuckle leaves you, and you take a step, falling gracefully into his hold. "Really?"

Joel loves sultriness in your voice. "Really." He goes back to the words he's been letting your mind soak up. Closes his eyes, leaning his forehead on yours as his arm locks around you. "How could you do that to me, hm?"

His own voice is wrecked. Sounds like something out of a ridiculous sex tape, or one of those Star Wars movies from back in the way.

Seemingly content with what you've done, Joel feels your giggling more than hears it—the huffs of breath on his chin and cheeks tickle. "I wasn't really thinking when I said it? It's just — it was the third time he questioned me choosing you to team up and I know it's stupid to let it get to me, I know Nathan's just — jealous, which is even more ridiculous than anything, but I hate the way he speaks over me sometimes. I hate it! And when I saw... it'd slipped out."

It's the coyness at the end of your ramble that gets him to open his eyes.

"Slipped out," he echoes.

You nod, smiling up at him. A little shy, a little devious. "Yeah."

The worst part is — he believed you. "I believe you." Truth does that. It slips out. It's uncontainable, like sunshine or water or rain.

Then, you're happier, and whenever your smile widened like that, Joel was always taken over by the desire to kiss you. This time, he embraced the hunger with open arms and leaned to capture what he wanted.

None of you discussed the lack of control of doing this only seconds after he just said there was no controlling him, but this was more than a need — or delicious, wet evidence —, it was breathing.

Joel inhales deeply while his tongue tangles with yours, his hands finding their path easily to your hair through your favorite spots and detours on your neck. He kisses them just to breathe.

He went without addiction for so long in this world.

When your throat vibrations with a low moan, Joel knows why.

He'd been weak before. No room in him for addictions if there were no higher parts of him working. No real thinking, feeling, existing.

People turned to things that gave them a thrill because existing demanded too much. A strenuous task with little to no rewards, which made everyone to need an escape.

Thankfully, you were no escape.

And as far as vices went, the taste of you was an infinite, healthy, and powerful source for one.

He pulls back for oxygen, breathing out slowly the warmness you leave in his chest.

"So I'm your guy." Joel needed to hear it again, maybe. He liked how the words sounded on his lips, too.

"You are."

Sweet Jesus.

He needs to get you home before starting this shit. "Fuck," it slips out. You laugh, resting your forehead on his sternum, and Joel nods to you and to himself. "'kay. We need to go. Let's go?"

"Yeah".

"Alright. No distractin' me while I'm drivin', ya hear me?"

Despite having already done everything tonight, you still have the audacity to whine at his request. Joel ought to slap your ass right there in the middle of the street. On the sidewalk outside where both of you work, often.

He takes advantage of the hand on your hair, making a fist with it — as carefully as he can be — and grips just right.

Putting his mouth to your ear, he whispers. "I'll spank ya 'till your ass is red if you whine again before my tongue's buried in your pussy." Joel lives for the way you gasp for him. He presses his whole body flushed with yours, and hears the repressed groan in your throat when you feel it. "I've been half hard since what you said sank in. Calling me yours like that, claiming me for everybody to hear. Had to fuckin' stop myself from thinkin' about fucking you on that table for everyone to see. Don't make me crazier than I already am, I swear to—" his final words end muffled on your lips.

Instead of finishing, he just gets another little taste of you.

One for the road.

For safe keeping.

Joel had such a distance between his mind now and the memories of his young adult years that every time this happened, he felt a little choked up:

nostalgia.

True, genuine nostalgia.

For him, it came in waves.

It smelled of his first trip to the beach, and the taste of gelato sticking sweet on his tongue. Showing him real sweetness for the first time.

That's what driving home to you feels like.

Joel's still not used to your eyes on him. Being looked at with so much hunger scared him at first. Joel thought these days were past him. He imagined luxury, lust, adventure, and the nice, saccharine-type of adrenaline all belonged in his past.

To a Joel that died when Cordyceps wrecked the world.

It turned out that your fingertips on his thigh touched the parts of him that proved his wonderings wrong.

Sure, he had trouble getting hard all by himself if he wanted to jack off on a random weekday, but — put you biting your bottom lip on the passenger seat, and Joel was bulging inside his jeans, stiff as a rock and with no rush to see the end of it.

The silence that blanketed the car comfortably is thrown out of the window when you two enter his room, fully clothed.

You are so good for him.

When Joel kicks his bedroom door closed behind him, you are still. Waiting for it.

Knowing exactly what he needs.

A shiver runs through his whole body, and Joel sits on his armchair to remove his boots. He turns on the soft light on the interrupter behind him, feeling around the wall for it so his eyes can remain on you. When the room's illuminated by yellow, warm light, Joel kicks off his shoes and spreads his legs, making himself comfortable.

"Take off your shoes." He loves this part. "And your pants." Joel's hand comes up to his beard, rubbing the patchy hair. "Then get here," he pats his lap, and watches as you do as he asked.

Slowly. Exactly how he likes it.

Joel keeps smoothing out the hair on his face as he watches you do it. The right word for what awakens inside him every time his eyes land on more and more skin, and more of your body, is adoration.

He'd been attracted to some people since the outbreak happened, it'd be impossible for him not to — Joel pretended for a long while to be devoid of feelings, not being dead.

Attraction and primal, raw desire might belong in the same family, but they lived on almost opposite ends of the spectrum. The first was the beginning of 'Interest' while the second was the furthest point of it.

Joel desired you for things that went far beyond your looks, but gods—

The looks.

He was painfully attracted to you, and he knew it dripped out of him.

When you strip off from all the item he asks for and walks to him, Joel puts his legs together to give you space in his armchair. His arms open up to welcome your body straddling his, then wrap around you, pulling you as close as possible.

As if he wished to trap you.

You wished he would.

For a while, all he does is feel you up.

His hands run over every exposed inch of your skin while his face rubs on your neck and your face, beard leaving the first tingles of what later will be red burns. Meanwhile, your body ignites as if fuel is being added to fire.

The longer Joel touches you, rubs on you, leaves trails of his mouth and his kisses on the skin it passes through, the hotter you burn. It starts as a fire in your brain — Joel started as a single flame somewhere in your mind, one you were unable to pin a finger on and eventually put out, and it grew, and it took over. His heat spreads from a fog around your thoughts to your neck. It descends to your neck, then it warms your chest.

When his tongue and teeth scrape a spot in your jugular, the storm he caused settles in between your legs, causing them to rut against his lap, rocking against the bulge inside his pants.

Joel hums in your neck, pulling back to look at your face. His smile is smug, and you say it you hate it every time you see it. "Stupid cocky smile." The words are ineffective as always — in face of how breathy you sound, the way your hips are moving in circles on top of him, they're empty.

"You love my cocky everything." Stupid cocky bastard.

Your mouth crashes against him, landing in a bruising kiss.

Joel never minded your roughness.

He embraced it however it came, whenever it came. Joel liked it. In all its forms, it was beautiful to him.

It matches the despair inside him. Joel enjoys how he's able to devour you, sometimes whole, because you feast on him as well. You tongue is hot and heavy on his, and your moans awaken the words from the meeting back to him.

Joel kisses even harder.

His hands — one on the nape of your neck and the other grabbing at your back, your boobs, your stomach — both move to your waist and guide your moves to slow it down.

When you pull back to breathe, Joel wants to feel everything.

He takes off your shirt in one swift motion, throwing them off somewhere without care. He removes your top as well, then takes a moment to appreciate the view.

"Take my clothes off, baby." He hates to have you off his lap for even a moment, but for this, it's worth it.

Since the first time he slept with you, Joel chooses to let you undress him if he can. If he's not in a rush to have you, if it's not one of those incredible moments when he already wakes up with you naked and him still only in boxers — if he can, Joel picks this—

Your fingers sometimes are desperate. Buttons are your worst enemy when all you want is him naked for you, but most of the time, you take your time. Do it slowly, taking off each item with the care he never seems to have for your clothes because all Joel cares for is your skin.

" I like taking them off. "

" Why?"

" Remember how I asked you that first time to do it?"

" Yeah."

" So — I wanted to do it for so long. I — don't laugh at me, or — look at me weird, but. I thought about it. A lot. Thought about... all these layers you're often using. And — I 'm crazy about your body. You — I know you complain about the aches and joke about being old and frail, which is — bullshit . Ridiculous, and everyone knows it. It's just... I like that you let me do it. I like that I get to undress you. It's hot. You're hot."

The memory strikes him again — as it does when he's in this position — and Joel feels a little raw.

Now that he knows how you feel, it makes it more real.

How you peel off his shirt by running your palms across his chest all the way through his back. Undoing the zipper of his pants, you palm the outline of his cock, then get down on both knees to pull them all the way off. Joel helps by lifting his hips a little, and seeing the way your eyes snap to his groin makes him burn.

Joel knows exactly what you'll go for — he watches you remove and throw his jeans to the side, hands running up his calves while you stand on both knees to nibble little bites on his thighs.

He hisses, feeling his dick twitch the closer you get to it. He lets you have your fun, no matter how much it feels like torture.

Your tongue touches the muscle of his inner thigh, sucking a bruise in there, and Joel gasps. "You ain't gonna do what you think you are."

You muffle what he images would be another whine by sucking a bruise on his other thigh. "Please?" You blink your gorgeous eyes, gazing straight at him.

Joel cups your face in one hand, smiling again. He refrains from answering because he likes what comes next.

The kisses that inch closer to his cock. The innocent, and yet siren eyes that stay steady on his while you whisper. "I've been good. Why not?"

"'Cause I have other plans for you."

You perk up. "What d'you want?"

Joel pats his lap. "Get back here."

You do as he says in a second, but instead of straddling both of his thighs, Joel guides you to one of his thighs. It's a tight squeeze in the armchair, but he makes it work. He pulls your panties to the side and pulls you down, feeling the wetness of your cunt at the first movement of your hips.

"That's it," he coos, tangling one hand in your hand to pull you in for a kiss. "Wanna see you get off on my thigh, baby," he kisses your neck, and smiles when you moan at his words and grind harder on him. "Just like that. Gonna use me? Hm?"

"Yeah."

"Gonna use your guy?"

"Joel." Your movements back and forth create a path of slickness in his thigh, and for someone who occasionally needs a little hand from you to get fully hard, he would believe the horniness in his mind that says he's just as young as ever. He feels he's never this hard — this desperate; the wet patch in his boxers only amplifies the louder you moan for him, and with your mouth back on his, Joel can imagine he's a mess.

Not as much as you. Nonetheless — a mess.

With a red, plump mouth, you pull back from his kisses to hold onto his face. Your other hand is gripping the back of his head, and Joel loves the look of pure lust on your face.

The look of someone who's in another dimension of feeling good.

He did that. Joel groans low in his throat when he thinks of it, and assaults your neck with kisses. One hand comes down to slap your ass, and you yelp — the look of surprise that flashes across your features is replaced by one of absolute pleasure within a split second, and Joel growls at witnessing it.

He slaps the other side with his other hand, and you cry for him.

"You're gonna cum like this." He knows you can. Joel's tested several different ways he can bring you to the edge, and this is one of his favorites. "Then, I'm gonna fuck you with my tongue."

"Oh, god." Your cries are accompanied by whimpers at every push of your hips on his thigh, and the slick sounds covering the air are taking away Joel's ability to think of anything other than you.

"Yeah — 'm gonna fuck you so hard, baby, goddamn it."

"Just like — like you want to? On the table?"

"Yes. Fuck—just like that." Joel sees you're teetering on the edge. He recognizes the trembling of your hand fisted in his hand, and the desperate way your hips start moving, almost losing balance. He leans to capture your bottom lip with his teeth, wanting so badly he could eat you. "Cum for me. If I'm yours, then you're mine, right?" Your hips falter at the words, losing their rhythm due to the shiver that runs through you. "That's it. Show me you're my lady. All fuckin' mine. Always so good for me, so fuckin' perfect—god, yeah. Like that — so damn good. Cum, baby. Don't stop. Keep cummin' for me."

Between your first and second orgasm, Joel gets lost in his mind and the moment.

It's rare for that to happen.

For someone who was used to panic rising so fast in his chest that it led to his heart trying to run out of his chest, or at least beat fast enough for it to feel like that, having no other thoughts but the present one and to submerge in what he's feeling.

He had to stop running from it — he feels.

Life never stopped, even if it felt like it did. No broken watch would stop time, and it was you who brought him the realization.

Joel shows his gratitude in one of the few ways he knows to.

One of the few ways he's at least certain he's good at.

By bringing you white bliss, and making you drown in nothing but good, for as long as he can. He carries you to bed and eats you from behind at first. That way Joel can fuck his tongue deeper inside you — he can bend you as far as you'll go and use his tongue until his jaw aches; until it stings and then burns because the reward tastes sweet on his tongue. It washes away all the hurt and gets his humming against your wet and pulsing core.

When he turns you over to do the same thing again but with you on your back, Joel gets lost in the middle of the way.

Your hands make grabby gestures at him.

Legs shaking, your skin covered in sweat, the way you say, "Please get on top of me." It's all too much.

Joel loses his last piece of clothing in one motion, and does something he should know better than to risk.

Grabbing his cock by the base, he drags the head between the lips of your cunt, pulling a moan from both of you. This is where he usually would grab a condom — after teasing you, giving you just the head, making you spread your legs wider or lock your legs behind his ass just to pull him closer.

Not this time. This time, he leans down until his mouth is on your ear and asks. "Can I? I understand if you don't want to—"

"Please. Yes, yes," you interrupt, hooking your legs around him and already pushing his hips closer.

Joel slides deeper, grunting on your neck. "Always so tight," he sounds drunk. "Lemme in, baby... Like that. Breathe deep." Joel's a big man, and the way you slowly relax to take all of him gets to his head every time. "Atta fuckin' girl, jus' like that."

"Joel this feels even better." The whine around the words makes him cry on your shoulder. He knows this is far from being the last time now.

He pulls out and slams it back in. "Fuckin' hell — it does." He thrusts his hips hard, but not fast. He likes to enjoy your sounds.

The filthy ones that fill the room.

If you sense that something shifted in Joel — something in his core, a foundation that he painted a coat of invisible ink over it as if such a thing existed — nothing about you lets that out.

You always held his face in your hands as he buried himself inside you.

The way you look at him — nothing about it is new, either.

Only this time, Joel lets himself feel it all the way through.

He is your guy, after all. He can feel all the good things you bring out in him because you want him to. It matters to you if he's happy or not. If he's safe, and fed, and not in pain. Joel buries himself in you the same way he buried all his hopes long ago — you found it in him, anyway. Years later, somewhere between all the grief and dust, you picked it up and gave it back to him even if he never asked for it.

Joel's usually harsher with you, not because he's trying to be mean, but because you like it when it hurts a little.

"Wanna feel you tomorrow—" are words he's heard a lot coming from you. Today, you say, "You gonna let your cum drip out of me?"

And it fucks with his head. He nods in answer, snapping his hips harder. Joel glues his forehead on yours and nods, grunting with the effort and the delicious drag of your tight cunt squeezing around him.

"'m close, Joel — feels too good."

That's his favorite song. How out of breath you sound, voice higher than ever. "'m gonna cum when you cum. 'm right behind you, baby. 's ok. Take your time. Feels good? Hm? Taking every fuckin' inch of me?"

"Oh god, Joel." Your hips are pushing back on his, and your arms use his shoulders for leverage as you hold onto him.

He laughs, kissing you through gasps and his own sounds. He shares the same air as you, wanting to fuck you so fast and hard that both of your hips will be hurting tomorrow, but he wants this to go on for a long time more than he wants to lose himself in you.

When your begging for "More, please Joel, more—" starts, Joel sits both of you up, pulling you back to his lap. He puts a pillow behind your back, supporting you against the headboard, and sits on his kneels and heels even if tomorrow they'll be aching.

You give him massages when he's hurting.

Joel needs to be as close to you as possible. Like this, your bodies are one.

Like this, you can plant your feet against the bed and fuck him back, as hard and as fast as you want to.

Joel gets a face full of your boobs bouncing up and down and your screams muffling his moans.

He feels it coming — you cling your arm around his shoulder and pull his face to yours again, your mouth hanging open in a perfect O until your eyes close shut.

Joel seems to lose all notion of time as you fall apart on top of him. He feels it all over your body. The orgasm shakes you whole, the trembling only losing for the way your cunt squeezes so hard around him, making it even harder to pull out. He fucks you deep and hard then, and it takes only a few more thrusts before he's moaning in your ear as he fills you up.

Coming down from a high is always difficult.

With you in his arms, it never happens.

Joel plays with his own cum leaking down your thighs, and smiles to himself when you tremble in sensitivity at his minor touches. He'll take a warm cloth and clean you both later, but first, he'll make a mess.

"All mine," he tells you. His fingers graze your clitoris, drenched in the mix of his own release and yours, and something in your eyes tell him you know what he's talking about.

While he may be unable to say some things — and your existence is challenging even that — he can say this much.

He agrees with you.

"All mine," you echo. Your kiss on his lips taste sweeter than before. They taste like I'm yours and you're mine, and for now, that's all he needs.

Joel has you, and you have him. It's all he needs to start.

♥ a supportive fandom means an active content creator. sharing & commenting are the best way to interact with a story. let me know your thoughts in the replies :)

#usernyxsedai #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us fic #tlou fanfiction #tlou fic #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel miller x you #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller fluff #joel miller hurt comfort #joel miller x y/n #joel miller x oc #possessive!joel miller

102 notes · View notes

vyxcondessa · 4 months ago

Text

under the water

Pairing: Counselor!Sevika x Assistant!Reader

Summary: When Sevika's eyes catches your frame across the lit up circle of the Council, the air stills and it evades her lungs. Everything that was, changes in some degree, and nothing can be done for the lack of words that turmoil until they're a river of it, flowing nonstop, all about you.

WC: 4k words.

☆。*。☆。

Under the water alone I pray for calmer seas…

To Sevika, most conversation ended in one of either paths—uncomfortable, or annoying. She hated it. The less there were of it, the better; it’s a wonder and a half she ended up where she is now. In this ridiculously high chair, surrounded by people who loved words. Loved talking. Indulged, thriving in the sound of their own voices.

What am I doing here? she was thinking. It’d been only the beginning of the meeting and although she was more of an observer and “pot stirrer” as Counselor Jayce liked calling her one time, Sevika was here. She cared about that.

This was a place of position, and she learned long ago to respect those.

At first, she’d been at a loss. In under a week, she understood she needed to know and be a step ahead to be in the same wavelength as these other folk. Sevika learned about them. She brought her own notes, which she busied herself with quite often, and listened to Salo trying to sound as he did nowadays—knowledgeable and less prejudiced, but what Sevika had been thinking of regarding the old man slips away when, without meaning to, her eyes realize—

Behind Medarda.

Sevika had been so busy with everything going on inside the circle that her senses escaped the outskirts of it, and there, almost as if bathed by the low veil of darkness that stretches behind every chair, there was a figure. Someone whose notepad glimmered in gold, matching the bracelets adoring the wrists.

It’s the gold that catches her eyes, she realizes.

Sevika’s drawn by sparkling, beautiful things as much as the next person—which is to say, she loved when something seemed like it had a natural, beautiful glow.

Until this day she recalled seeing the Blue Morpho swimming on the edge of what used to be the Downside River. The glow in the wings, resembling the neon lights of the street but somehow prettier—Sevika stayed there for hours at end, and she would stay here too, now.

Because…

well, aren’t you a sight?

A sight. Sevika’s eyes work on their own accord, drinking every inch in. From the sparkling notepad to the shoes, the legs, the middle, the arms, the all of it.

The temperature in the room stops being what it once was.

Being a woman of very few words meant this: when Sevika found herself without a single one to spare—without even the start of a syllable forming in the back of her mind or finding its way to the tip of her tongue, everything stopped.

Then, it kind of spinned.

And when she saw you, it did.

There used to be things running her through her mind, a tree of connected talks and concerns regarding Zaun and Piltover, the people that counted on these hard heads making somewhat decent decisions, and here she was, with her neck stiff.

Sevika first laid eyes on you in the middle of a meeting, without intention or notice, and you noticed.

Why is she looking back at me?

The temperature was no longer the same, and neither was the curiosity in her mind. That had already taken a life of its own.

Such pretty eyes. Such a pretty mouth.

There—those are words. Too bad they’re the inappropriate and addictive kind, and they make her feel her lips dry.

Then, you turned away, took notes on a piece of paper you held in your arms, and she was forced to confront the notion that it was you, not your eyes that had a certain—power.

Who is this?

The notion of how to make a sense of more than just a few words — such pretty eyes… such a pretty mouth being the only ones — and realize the discussion is still happening only appeared after what felt like an eternity. She stood there in the same pose; the only sign of life being her fingers twirling her pen, over, around, under, then again.

In those spare seconds where she managed to fit a small cut of an eternity, Sevika did something else she thought to be an art long gone from her body and already lost in her sea of things that left to never return:

Cataloging a body. Analyzing the traces and curves, shaped by the way the light hits and how the fabrics picked out by you — cashmere and silk, she dared guessing — and how it all hugged your body.

Apparently, it’s one of those things you never unlearn: Bike riding, cooking a dish, checked someone out.

The reason why her eyes found your frame in the first place sat in front of you—Councilor Medarda, a consultant to this circle, was the person to whom you leaned in and whispered something after finishing your notes.

That meant you had to be the Apprentice mentioned by Medarda as the mediator she’s hired who acted as her extent in her matters, and it’s instantaneous what landing her eyes on you does to Sevika.

She stills.

The moment her eyes find you and there, your eyes are opened and gazing, staring right through Sevika—

then, in one, two seconds, you look away.

The gaze that was on Sevika’s frame—somewhere between her fingers which now twirled around with the silken thread and the lower half of her face, landing her on her eyes staring equally back at you; those sparkling eyes are now set on the notepad held by that golden clipboard, making Sevika wonder what’s more interesting in them.

And the hardest part of all is: words escape her lips and the trail of thought keeping up with the meeting around her dissipate into a thin, fresh cloud of mist, but in her mind, there’s plenty going on.

It had been ages since someone’s frame robbed her of north for a moment, making her pause. Look.

Take in.

Ache a little bit—curiosity is a pain when it clenches at your insides.

Sevika kind of hates this.

And as much as she had nothing to say, out of the sudden, her mind detoured to roads her feet wondered to too long ago.

It’s been to long since she wanted to know what other people were whispering about. Ages since she found herself squirming where she sat, with a source for her discomfort pulsing in the guilty rhythm of her heartbeat right between her legs.

And as much as Sevika had other things to do, as well— pressing things, important matters that also filled countless layers of paper with information right in front of her, something else she considered to be an atrocious and silly thought, much like checking out somebody else — Sevika’s eyes crawled back for a bit more, eager to paint in her mind each inch of the gorgeous shape that were your lips.

Which were not her only source of distraction.

“—don’t you think, Counselor Sevika?” asks Jayce.

It fucks her up—one simple question; one she missed, because she’s far away. On the other side of the circle, to be more precise.

Having to think fast, Sevika hides the need to twist her neck or do something else to show she feels the weight of everyone’s eyes on her. “I can’t recall the last time I agreed with you.”

Some of the others laugh, Jayce included.

A knot unties in Sevika’s chest, and having gotten what he wanted from her ambiguous response, Jayce turns his calm features to Salo, going back around to his point.

Sevika’s given up.

There was more than generally everything so obviously entrancing about you.

There were also your eyes. The ones that caught her in the middle of her…. gazing. That looked away when both pairs of eyes seemed to lock with a click.

Piercing orbs, shining for those singular eternal two seconds, then taking away all their entrancing glow somewhere else, leaving her with no other option but to drink the bridge that went down to your nose. Partaking in true Piltover fashion, there was a piercing on your nose, glistening in the same material as the rest of the jewelry on your body. It put all the other colors in the room pale in comparison—she’d only felt that staring at Mel Medarda for the first time after the Rebirth, and not even then did she look so much.

Sevika eyes followed the hair style and the way your hair fell on your shoulders. That concentration, thick and palpable in the features you proudly exhibited, simply… existing there.

Shoulders postured back and that seriousness on your face that was probably what rendered Sevika this way—frozen, even though she’s aware of at least that.

A part of her mind reminds her she should be ashamed of stealing so many looks—

Ogling. I’m…

Stunned. Hiding it poorly that this meeting is all but fucking over to her.

She’d later keep this part to herself, but each squirm Sevika’s body is incapable of holding down in that ridiculous big chair of theirs, it makes everything worse. Nothing makes her comfortable anymore.

She had seen the interesting choice for shoes, the discerning outfit, penciled and tailored to elevate the aura of knowledge already placed naturally on your shoulders, the bracelets—a pair set of them, that being the only jewelry you wear other than the noticeable tattoos on your shoulders and neck, when she finishes her check up and finds it there, already waiting for her, the very same set of eyes which turned her buttoned all the way up jacket to feel the same as an armlock. As tight and uncomfortable.

Not nearly as warm, though.

It’s hot.

Under the collar of her clothes, choking the knot already forming on her throat at looking back at you.

Gorgeous.

That’s word, she thinks with humor.

At the smile that climbs up the corner of Sevika’s mouth, your gaze is gone again, and there’s a sudden alarm that goes off somewhere, a siren blasting—

“Councilor Sevika?” it’s louder.

It’s a repetition.

Heimerdinger’s eyes are soft as ever, but it unnerves Sevika that he’s not the only council member now looking at her.

“Councilman Salo asked if you agree with him,” Heimerdinger repeats himself, and isn’t that a saving hand?

She’d been distracted by an entrancing and hypnotizing set of… well, she would say lips, but part of her had been wondering who was the person who gifted her those bracelets, because Sevika knew that metal from up close and recognizes runic work when she saw them—they looked special and something told her they had been a gift, so it was not only about the lips.

She thanks whatever is out there that she always takes her time to replying, and wishes not for the first time she had a cigarette. This is the second distraction. She might have to drown in alcohol tonight.

“Counselor Salo…” who were you? “The last time we talked about these matters, your opinion was that somethings are just consequences of improper governing. Then, you said so many absurdities after that, that I’m trying trying to find my footing believing what comes out of your mouth or not.”

“Well, that’s because you seem to want to live in a world made up for fantasies, Counselor Sevika.”

Nailed it. She had to give it to him—making sure every time he said her name prefaced by her designation sounding like a mockery, in a measured, calculated level, was an art by now.

Sevika catches a smile across the room formed and exposed midst the golden hues of Medarda’s tattoos.

That’s another part Sevika fails to tell Vi or Nina later on: a Medarda’s smile does wonders to turn bold someone’s already high ego.

“I’m not the one who watches outer space opera in an exclusive island of dubious descent and proven Arcane touches.” There—it’s the most she’s said the whole meeting, and it’s dipped and swimming in the knowledge that it was observed.

Sevika’s collar burns once again, and it makes her want to say more.

Stupid.

Salo opens his mouth again, but the gods are gracious and Jayce speaks up upfront. There are worse graces than being saved by Talis, and it spares Sevika of two evils.

One, listening to Salo a bit more.

Two, pretending she’s capable of understanding what she’s listening.

Getting through the meeting turns out to be a hassle. A frown sows its way into her face, and she does her best at juggling having seen the most beautiful person in a good damned while and yet another meeting that felt it had its weight in gold and titanium, as heavy as the new left arm she’s yet to accustom to.

When it all ends, Sevika’s mind feels wrung out, and her body, a boiled, needy mess of knots.

It takes forever for everyone to be sat at the round table, but in under a minute, they’re all gone, it seems, and Sevika feels a little less on alert at taking in the silence and the illuminated circle. There’s not a single dust flying in the air, and when she breathes in, it almost burns her nostrils. An icy, cold breath, every time.

“Counselor Sevika?”

Well, shit.

She turns around to face Medarda and—yeah. Sure enough, there you are.

By her side, this time.

“I was hoping to introduce you to someone,” Medarda continues. If she’s bothered by Sevika’s silence like most people from Piltover seem to be, she’s great at hiding it. “This is my assistant and good friend.” Your name flows out of Medarda’s lips, swimming inside of Sevika’s mind, diving deep.

She wants to repeat it out loud, so she presses her lips together instead. She’s end up whispering it like a fool.

Medarda says your name again, “this is Counselor Sevika.”

“Hello, Counselor.” Against all odds, your voice follows everything else she’s so far seen about you: somehow perfect, with a touch of unique, with a glint of curiosity tingling underneath Sevika’s skin. She’d been around Piltover folks for months at end now and none of them had this—you tilt your head at her, looking up from underneath your thin framed glasses. “I was hoping to ask you some questions.” And Sevika was hoping there were five of them. Ten. It could be an interview, for all she cared. Mistaking her silence for something other than an infatuation blossoming, standing as tall as the chairs behind her and as much as she’d like to name it as ridiculous, she’s incapable of that. When you blink twice and add, “If that’s alright with you,” sounding so close to worried, she managed a mental self slap.

“Of course.”

Your shoulders relax. “Right.”

Smiling as cattish and slippery as a fox, Medarda claps once her hands together. “Wonderful.” Looking at Sevika, Medarda says. “She’s managed to get out all the information she wanted from all the other counselors already.”

Oh. Sevika had no business walking around or going out in Piltover. Certainly not around the same circles as Mel Medarda and her assistant. “I see,” there’s the project of a smile hiding in the right corner of Sevika’s lips.

If there’s anything bothering you about your boss and good friend exposing the nature of your questions intent, you’re good at hiding them, too.

“You only answer what you’re comfortable answering. Of course.”

“Of course,” Sevika repeats. Then, it slips out—your name, falling from her lips.

“Yes?”

She’d have to think fast but the curiosity’s taken in when she heard the name already, not followed by anything. “Folks from Piltover are very careful to say their last name or the family they’re being financed by these days.”

The implied question is met with a challenge in your eyes that reaches inside her gut. “They are.”

Sevika’s eyebrows fly up.

“I’m from Undercity.”

Of course you are. She switches her “What are the questions?”

“I’ll find you outside?” Medarda asks you. After a nod and and unspoken conversation shared in a couple of glances, there are only the two of you in the room.

Sevika’s arms remain stiff and awkward, not knowing where they should stand—your body’s so perfect in its stillness that it bubbles the squirming itch underneath her own skin.

“Okay.” You pull out the notepad from somewhere and clip your pen, looking at her with the same weight of piercing orbs that made Sevika lose and entire meeting, alternating between floating and couching up layers of thoughts and thoughts of you. “I dug most of these information out of the others through—dubious questions, but I guess with you I can—I’ll ask you directly, and you reply if you want to.”

“Is this your first meeting?” it seemed you had figured out how Sevika worked already despite never been here in person.

You shake your head. “The golden round globe was me.” You referred to the item Medarda had laid in front of her for the last three meetings. “So, technically, no.”

“Got it.”

“Can I start?”

“Sure.”

“Are you aware of the involvement of the Fireflies with the Underwater and Undercity trades?”

As soon as the words are out of your mouth, so is the smile of out of hiding. Sevika’s lips pull up without her permission, and the best she can do is hold down her laughter. “Oh.” When you keep staring, expectant and as serious as before, Sevika’s shoulders are the first part of her to relax. “Yeah.” She holds her right hand to her hip, and tells herself she can get through this for as long as she keeps her eyes on yours, and no other part of you. “Of course I am.”

“Right. Are you aware they’re being followed by members of a lower guild looking to steal blueprints of their technology and hiding spot?’

Any laughter dies inside of her, and Sevika shakes her head. “How many members?”

“As far as I know, five.” You write something down. “Are you aware that Jinx is still alive?”

That re postures her. The last — and only time — someone asked her this, they ended up pinned between her metal arm and the concrete wall. “How do you know that?”

“I was one of the first who realized it. Tried to keep it on the low for as long as I could, but it was only a matter of time before someone else caught on. Three months ago, someone did.”

The golden round globe was me.

That was three months ago.

The next question manages to outdo the previous one in surprise—not by content, but by tone. “Is she okay?”

Worry.

Sevika’s tried wrapping her brain around the fact Jinx became what she did. “Yeah, she is.” Usually, she calls people ‘kid’, or another nickname to remind them of their place. The only thing that’d fall out of her lips now could get her in trouble.

“Good. Jayce’s been walking circles around something for a while now and it might link itself to her, although, I wish it wouldn’t. How much do you trust Jayce?”

For a second, she has to think; then, the answers just find its way out of her.

None of your questions are things she’d like to evade.

If only people asked everything in such a direct and honest matter—she’d have more opportunities to laugh inside this beautifully re-constructed room, much like she does when you ask, “and do you think Salo has had a change of mind and heart?”

She laughs.

It’s a burst of it, and it’s made ten times better when Sevika sees that it breaks at your impassive mask, turning both corners of your lips upwards.

“Do I have to answer that?”

“I think you just did,” you’re smiling.

Sevika’s made countless women smile before in her life, but it’s been too long since she cared about doing it. “Guess I did.”

“What of Counselor Heimerdinger?” You asked taking another note. “Do you trust him?”

Over the course of five minutes, Sevika’s interrogated. Through those same minutes, she finds herself answer most if not all of your questions.

The ones left unanswered are the ones she has no idea up until now, but every one of them gave her something to think about.

When she feels it’s nearing an end, she can already feel a grip around her heart and stomach, something squeezing at the thought of leaving your presence without the knowledge of when it’ll happen again—looking at you and being looked back, so unabashedly.

Sevika sort of wants to stay here.

She’s been close enough to get a whiff of what you smell like. The dance of your hand against the paper seems almost familiar in comfortable under such short notice. Sevika holds down the squirming in order to look composed enough after how lacking the distraction must’ve looked on her face.

When it happens, Sevika tells herself the staring is okay for as long as you are doing it.

“Thanks for your patience,” you tell her.

“Not a problem.”

“It was much better than enduring space opera to interrogate Salo and his business partner, I’ll tell you as much.”

Sevika smirks. “Oh—you don’t have to lie to me.”

For the first time, you let it out—it’s a breath of a laughter, but it works just as fine. “I’m not.”

“This ten minute interrogation was better than space opera?”

“It was.” The intentional look into her eyes makes Sevika want a tall glass of cold water. That’s how fancy, hot, and delusional it leaves her feeling. One single look and—is she dragging this out, too?

“I have a hard time believing that.”

“You should.” This time, it’s you who squirms under the silkiness flowing down your shoulders. “This was easy and… comfortable.”

“Space opera was not?”

“I think you can imagine how it feels like to watch something otherworldly among people and beings whose mere existence makes you feel like an outsider.”

If there was any doubt lingering in Sevika to where that authenticity came from—the spark of glow amidst supernaturals and geniuses, it settled there and then.

“I would imagine it’s beautiful.”

Breathless, the words come out confessional. “It was.” Then, you lick at dry lips and swallow around a visible knot. “Too bad I couldn’t enjoy a second of it.”

It makes a whole burn in her chest, but for the thousandth time in her life, her silence’s mistaken for something else.

“You don’t need to hear my whining,” you laugh is self deprecating, but you’re talking before she can finish opening her lips. “You’ve done enough. Thank you again, Counselor.”

She hated being called that.

In your lips, it sounded almost nice. “Don’t worry—like I sad, it was not a problem. I—I enjoyed the—honest conversation… too.”

It comes out stiff—as frozen as her whole frame there, shadowing yours.

“Right.” Both of you are only capable of looking, but before the heat in Sevika’s skin can reach her clothes and catch something on fire, the sound of your shoe taking a step back makes air find its way to her lungs again. “I should get going.”

“Me too.”

You take a couple of steps to the side, but it’s only after a smile that you say, “I’ll see you at the town’s anniversary, Counselor Sevika.”

Sevika’s human hand clenches into a fist because—say it again, call my name again, say it a hundred more times—

Wait.

“What?”

“Piltover’s anniversary. A month from today. All counselors must attend… familiar?” the words do ring bells—many of them, and Sevika nods looking down at her boots.

“Of course.”

She hears your puff of laughter. “I’ll see you there.” She prays to hear it again.

“Yeah. I’ll see you there,” she finishes off with your name, almost as if tasting it.

She needs another few minutes before she leaves.

Everything is as bright as it was when she first saw you across the room. The roof of her brain has this new smell that she’d die and kill to discover that the hell it is made of. The smell of you.

Sevika’s at a loss of words, but at every turn, she finds a couple of new ones to describe the ridiculous things swirling inside of her whenever you cross her mind.

116 notes · View notes